EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. – It was evident from the moment Packard and the team unloaded her Northstar Fireworks/Packard Fuels sponsored car, that she was happy to be racing again at Devil’s Bowl. “We had a pretty good day in practice,” Packard said, “we did some fine tuning and worked on getting the car off the track. I have really been looking forward to returning to Devil’s Bowl, and knew that we would run well here.”
Packard showed a calm confidence as she climbed into her car for the first practice of the day, and headed out to the track. Her practice times were in the top 10 all day, so she and the team knew that she had a good race car. Drawing the 8th starting spot in the first heat, Packard only had 10 laps to pick her way towards the front and make it into one of the qualifying spots for the race. “I went out in the heat race starting 8th,” said Packard. “I kept getting in the wrong lane and ended up finishing 5th in the heat and had to race in the consolation race.”
After finishing 5th in the heat race, Packard started the consolation race on the front row, outside the 27nh. When the green flag waved, Packard and Wayne Helliwell ran side by side lap after lap, swapping the lead a couple times. Finally on lap 7 Packard was able to clear the 27nh car and take the consi race win. “I went out and started on the outside of Wayne (Helliwell), and won it,” Packard said. “I had a plus three from the heat race which carried into the race giving me the 3rd starting position.”
Lined up in the 3rd starting position, Packard hung tight with the top three for the first 25 laps of the race. At the halfway point, Packard was passed by the 11ny which moved her back to 4th position. “The car stated to fall off around lap 35 and just kept getting super loose,” said Packard. At 20 to go Packard was running in the 6th position, but was under some major pressure from the 5ct car. With a lap car in the mix, Packard took her Northstar Fireworks car to the outside of the lapped car just as the 5ct car dove to the inside, coming out of turn 4 three wide. This move dropped her to 7th place where she would finish as she crossed the line for the checkers. “I didn’t have a lot of drive off unfortunately towards the end of the race.” Packard said. “Overall we had a really good day and I am very happy with the finish. I’m glad we had a good run up here, we had a fast car all day, and it’s unfortunate that the car got away from us, but you’ll have that.”
“I want to send out a big thank you to my dad and mom, my team, Neal, Sammy, Frankie and Steve, as well as all my awesome sponsors; Northstar Fireworks, Packard Fuels, Rutland Regional Medical Center, Be The Match, Yipes! of Barre, Fecteau Homes, Berlin Optical Expressions, Creative Visions and GossCars.com – I couldn’t do this without all of their support.”
After 6 races in the American Canadian Tour, Packard finds herself sitting 5th in the championship battle with seven races left to complete the season. Emily and the team have the weekend off and will be back at the track on June 20th at White Mountain Motorsports Park.